Technological advancements are altering the production industry at breakneck speed. As a result, those at the top of the game need to spend nearly as much time reading as doing their jobs.

In few businesses is this more evident than editing. In recent years the job of the editor has moved from a stationary and linear function – the last stop in the production process – to a highly mobile and versatile role.

While Avid revolutionized the business over a decade ago through the introduction of nonlinear offline, that mind-blowing advancement was just the first in a string that has put a full menu of post capabilities in the hands of the editor.

Today, editors have the functionality to do graphics, titling, color correction, compositing and even sound, not to mention online nonlinear finishing.

When a director can’t get something in-camera, often the best solution is to do it in-suite. Fixes that a few years ago would have been jobs unto themselves, such as sky replacements and rig removals, now happen in session.

So while technology can free your time, it can also force you to do more because there are more tools available. How the individual leverages these advancements depends on the individual.

Here, then, are some of Canada’s top editors’ views on how technology has affected them:

Richard Unruh, owner and senior editor, Third Floor Editing, Toronto

‘I think the most profound effect [technology] has had on me is the portable nature of it. I do work in both Canada and the United States, and it has truly allowed me the pleasure and privilege of being able to travel with material already in a hard drive – already selected, often, already cut. So I can literally move my office from city to city….I’ve had as much as 25,000 to 30,000 feet of film in a hard drive. It takes up a tiny space in my briefcase. I plug it in in another city and I’m editing.’

Gary Thomas, senior designer Crush, Toronto

‘What has happened over the last few years with Henry and Inferno is the online position has become a much bigger role. In the old days – and I don’t want to demean that role because it was obviously a very complicated one – it was more a case of finishing something that had already been going on. Whereas now, [producers] have got a huge reliance on whoever is in that chair to be part offline editor, part graphic designer, part compositor. All things can happen in the chair at the end. In some cases, Inferno guys need to know basic 3D.

‘The capabilities are there with these systems to do some reasonably complicated sound editing….A lot gets left till the final stage now.’

Pierre Raymond, president Hybride Technologies, Piedmont, QC

‘We have a graphic palette in each system and we can do composting and multilayering and stuff like that. But clients have a hard time distinguishing between a nonlinear editing system and a compositing system. Rarely do they understand who is doing what. In compositing, you can do a little bit of editing, and in the editing, you can do a little bit of compositing, and this is confusing clients. It’s giving them a feeling that you’re cheating – that you’re going to work on an Inferno but in reality you should stay on a Smoke to do the job. When you pick a piece of equipment, you need to explain in-depth on what basis you’re making your decision.’

Bob Kennedy, partner and senior editor, Flashcut, Toronto

‘The combination of the Internet and higher bandwidth, what they call extranets, are enabling long-distance collaboration. We’ve been experimenting with the notion of a virtual edit room. The idea is that I can work with people remotely and they can actually see in realtime the editing that I’m doing. We can videoconference and see each other. That [advent] is still at the testing stage because it requires a high bandwidth connection right the way through. We’ve got it at our end but the agencies don’t, generally.

‘Also, what we are using now and is becoming quite popular is Adbeast and the idea of creating a project where all materials can be centralized, shared and accessed by the necessary people with password protection.’

Allan Pinvidic, senior editor Finale Editworks, Vancouver

‘When the technology first started changing, they just thought, well you can just do this so much faster. To a certain extent that’s true, but you end up doing more because you can. You end up taking about the same amount of time, but you end up with a better product…with plug-ins and those kinds of things. [Technology] has brought all these great effects to your doorstep. Where it used to be a specialized group that did effects, now you are able to. It’s just widened the possibilities for more users.’

Alain Baril, owner and senior editor, Bureau de Post Productions, Montreal

‘When I was younger, I worked a lot. Today, I have more time for my life. But is it the technology, or my life? The technology itself is nothing, it’s the people behind it. If you do 200 cuts per day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, you’re going to go crazy. What the technology gives you is time – time for life.’